Cargill Meat Solutions was honored with a lifetime membership in the Morgan County Cattlemen's Association Saturday evening at Country Steak-Out.The association also gave a standing ovation for Morgan County Extension Agent Marlin Eisenach during its annual banquet, in which the banquet room was filled to capacity.

MCCA President Matt Kalous explained that Cargill was chosen for the lifetime membership because of its support of the organization, which includes donating the steaks for the dinner each year.

"Without you people, we'd be in trouble," said Brett Walters, assistant plant manager of the beef plant in Fort Morgan. He added that Cargill looks forward to doing business with the cattlemen in the future.

John Clatworthy, right, ran the auction for the Morgan County Cattlemenâ s Association Saturday. Funds are used for youth activities and scholarships.
(
Picasa
)

As he prepared to have an auction to raise money for the MCCA's activities, auctioneer John Clatworthy took a moment to praise Eisenach for winning the Stow Witwer Legacy Award at the National Western Stock Show.

"(Eisenach) is the best extension agent in Colorado," Clatworthy said, which prompted the crowd to rise to its feet for a standing ovation.

That same sentiment had been expressed at the stock show.

The auction raised $6,500 for the organization's activities, including the scholarship program.

The banquet is always the venue for honoring the association's scholarship winners each year. Rebecca May, Zach Lebsock, Kathleen Heupel, Carli Nichols, Jace Powell, Ryan Dreitz and Alicia Nichols each received scholarships for this academic year, and receive scholarships for four years.

Advertisement

Scholarships go to local young people who go to college to major in agriculture or an agriculture related major, Eisenach said.

He said he appreciated that the association gave out the scholarships, since it is quite costly to go to college today.

Eisenach said he hopes to see a lot of applications for the scholarships.

Eisenach also talked about the stock show project the association financially supports each year in combination with the Fort Morgan Young Farmers.

Rebecca May, center, and Zach Lebsock, left, are among seven young people who received scholarships from the Morgan County Cattlemenâ s Association, said Morgan County Extension Agent Marlin Eisenach, right.
(
Picasa
)

This was the 13th year that the organizations sponsored county third graders to attend the stock show, he said. Before they can go, they have to learn about agriculture. Member of the cattlemen and the young farmers go into local schools to teach kids about where food comes from and what crops are used for what purposes.

They talked about corn, milk, sugar beets, eggs, brands and the use of byproducts, Eisenach said.

Morgan County Cattlemen's Association members rose for a standing ovation to honor Morgan County Extension Agent Marling Eisenach, who recently received the Stow Witwer Legacy Award at the National Western Stock Show.
(
Picasa
)

It is nice that the producers can help with the presentations, because they can talk about what it is like to be a producer, not just teach out of a book, he said.

This tradition of teaching about agriculture started when Eisenach realized how little elementary school students knew about agriculture, even though the local economy is based on ag. Students take a pre-test about agriculture and a test after the presentations and show a marked increase in knowledge.

More than 300 students made the trip to the stock show, getting to see things like sheep shearing, pony trails, the hall of education and the petting zoo.

"They all like that," Eisenach said, noting that many of the kids have never seen farm animals, let alone petted them.

This is also the time of year that kids receive animals that were donated by MCCA for kids to use in competition at the Morgan County Stock Show and other venues. Krista and Brian Schoonveld donated a heifer for the project. Alan and Jody Meyer donated a steer.

Brian Downing donated two huge round bales of hay to the kids who are raising the heifer and steer, and Keith Bath donated two tons of corn to feed the steer.

MCCA is also involved with feeding -- above and beyond at their operations.

Twenty-six members put calves in a feeding contest run by the Colorado State University Research Center, Kalous said.

The cattle were looking good when he checked up on them recently, he said.

When the feeding is done, the carcasses will be sold to the beef plant , and the winner will be the one who has the most pounds of meat, Kalous said.

Article Comments

We reserve the right to remove any comment that violates our ground rules, is spammy, NSFW, defamatory, rude, reckless to the community, etc.

We expect everyone to be respectful of other commenters. It's fine to have differences of opinion, but there's no need to act like a jerk.

Use your own words (don't copy and paste from elsewhere), be honest and don't pretend to be someone (or something) you're not.

Our commenting section is self-policing, so if you see a comment that violates our ground rules, flag it (mouse over to the far right of the commenter's name until you see the flag symbol and click that), then we'll review it.